I guess I should be a little worried at actually really liking a Eurovision Song Contest winner. Lena's simple little track appealed to me from the first time I heard it a month ago. What's even more worrying is that I got 7 of the top ten right and 4 of the top five. Then I think of the useful extra income from the bets I placed and it's something I can live with and will, of course, return to yet again next year!
Turkey clearly got the heavy-duty votes for those who still think something mechanical should win and Romania must have put in a good performance to push my other winner prediction, Denmark, and the bookies favourite from the start, Azerbaijan into 4th and 5th places respectively.
Impressed to see the so serious Ukraine entry close the door on the weird Russians for the 10th spot.
Obviously France simply couldn't reproduce the sex on the beach film on stage and, thankfully, that track should only be heard again in holiday nightclubs for the summer before being forgotten.
The surprises for me were the poor showings of Iceland, who easily got the best audience reaction in the semi final (or maybe it was because that was the last song and they could all go home) Norway - I mean, you'd have thought they'd have given the country paying for the whole shooting match a few more votes - I can only assume that their guy didn't hit the notes at the end after all and Moldova, who must have lost out to several neighbours or screwed up on stage.
I didn't bet anything on UK coming last. I was sure they'd be near the bottom but not actually bottom. I still recall the dreadful UK selection programme where every option was an 80s production and left us feeling pretty let down. I honestly don't know anyone who thought it had a chance. I even thought that such obvious disappointment at the time might have made someone somewhere think twice. Whilst Jade made a good impression last year, I still don't think the process worked and all we seem to get are committee songs or least worst options. Remember Andy something or other? Wasn't he last too? Scooch crashed and didn't burn when we went for something wacky and the really good song that we rejected (and which Terry Wogan mistook for being accepted!) would have given that year's winner, a similar offering by Serbia, a run for its money.
So in 2011, can we please not have these TV specials and instead get one of our successful bands or singers to come up with our entry? Someone singing something they've written themselves seems like a good idea.
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